"It's not a symbol! I call it cheek!"
"Cheek my fat aunt! You're funking it!"
"You can say what you like! You can stuff your own mouth with the muck! I'm not going to choke for your sake!"
"But what of all your wonderful talk about freedom and advancing with the new race," Segal asked quietly, "and all the good old moonshine?"
"I just think, if you want a symbol, fried fish on Yom Kippur is as useful as ham. It's what d'you call it? it's irreverent somehow, insisting on ham! Yes, that's it! It's irreverent!"
"It's certainly expensive!" declared Segal with an air of finality. When the food came at last, the three boys hardly touched either ham or fish. They had, at least, stood up for the principle of emancipation! And ham, moreover, is a difficult commodity between unaccustomed jaws.
"It's time I got back!" said Philip, at the point where Cambridge Street merged into more familiar territory. "He'll be getting restive about me!"
"There's a comet in the offing!" declared Segal. "To-morrow night?"
"To-morrow night, and let your ham rest quiet in your bellies!"
Philip, after entering the Polisher Shool, spent a little time with his mother, not yet being of an age when a masculine presence raised perturbation in the women's section. When he advanced towards his own seat, his father frowned a question upon him. "Nu, and where so long?"